1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a refrigerator, and more particularly, to an air circulation system of a refrigerator capable of regulating air to be uniformly flown into a refrigerator compartment.
2. Description of the Related Art
A refrigerator is used to keep foods as frozen or refrigerated and comprised of a housing for defining an accepting space separated into a freezer compartment and a refrigerator compartment therein; doors for the freezer compartment and the refrigerator compartment; and instruments such as a compressor, a condenser and en evaporator for constituting a cooling cycle to form a cold air.
In such a refrigerator, the compressor compresses a cold and low pressure gaseous refrigerant into a hot and high pressure gaseous refrigerant, and the condenser cools and condenses the compressed hot and high pressure gaseous refrigerant to a high pressure liquid, which is towered in temperature and pressure while passing through capillary tubes and then absorbs heat from the surroundings while evaporating into the cold and low pressure gas in the evaporator to cool the surrounding air. The air cooled through the evaporator is introduced and circulated to the freezer compartment and the refrigerator compartment by the operation of a blower fan placed at one side of the evaporator to lower the temperature of the freezer and the refrigerator compartments.
Meanwhile, the refrigerator is provided with an air circulation system for circulating the cold air formed around the evaporator, which is constituted in various configurations according to the refrigerator type.
FIG. 1 shows an example of the air circulation system applied to a side-by-side type refrigerator in which a freezer compartment and a refrigerator compartment are horizontally arranged side-by-side. The air circulation system further comprises a blower fan 20 installed in a blowing chamber 101 in an upper rear section of the freezer compartment 10 and a damper 22 arranged in an upper section of the refrigerator compartment 12 to communicate with the blowing chamber 101.
In this configuration, the blowing chamber 101 is positioned over an evaporator in the rear of the freezer compartment 10 and has an outlet port 10a at one side thereof for exhausting a cold air to the freezing compartment 10 (refer to FIG. 2), and the damper 22 has two outlet ports 22a in a side section and one outlet port in a lower section (refer to FIG. 3).
According to the air circulation system like this, as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, the cold air formed around the evaporator is distributed to the freezer compartment 10 and the damper 22 (designated by dot arrows in FIGS. 2 and 3) by the blower fan 20, in which a portion of the cold air exhausted to the freezer compartment 10 circulates within the freezer compartment 10 and then faces toward the evaporator through an air suction port in a lower section of the freezer compartment 10 and the other portion of the cold air introduced to the damper 22 is ejected to the refrigerator compartment 12 through the air outlet ports 22a in the side and lower sections.
The cold air ejected to the refrigerator compartment 12 through the damper 22 is introduced to the freezer compartment 10 through a cold air suction port 12a in the lower section of the refrigerator compartment 12 to repeat the circulation of passing the evaporator by the blower fan 20.
According to the related art as above, there is an advantage that the cold air in the freezer compartment 10 can be sent to the refrigerator compartment 12 through the damper 22 with a relatively simple configuration thereby allowing the refrigerator to have a simple structure.
However, in the related art as above, since the cold air is concentrically ejected from the upper section of the refrigerator compartment 12 due to the position of the damper (which is positioned over the refrigerator compartment 12), there is a problem that the temperature deviation in the refrigerator compartment 12 may deepen with the upper section being cold and the lower section having a relatively higher temperature so that the cooling operation of the refrigerator compartment 12 may not be performed properly, i.e. foods contained in upper shelves are excessively cooled while those contained in lower shelves are not properly cooled.
Accordingly, the present invention has been proposed to solve the foregoing problems and it is an object of the invention to provide an air circulation system of a refrigerator comprising: a blower fan provided in a blowing chamber in an upper rear section of a freezer compartment; front air ejecting ports provided in a front section of a partition between the freezer compartment and a refrigerator compartment and communicating to the blowing chamber; rear air ejecting ports provided in a rear section of the refrigerator compartment in the diagonal direction from the front air ejecting port; an air suction port provided in a lower section of the refrigerator compartment and communicating to the freezer compartment; and means for forming a cold air curtain capable of preventing outflow of a cold air when a refrigerator door is opened.
It is preferred that the front and rear air ejecting ports are longitudinally provided, and that the cold air curtain forming means has an air valve for regulating the cold air to be ejected through only the front cold air ejecting ports; an actuator for actuating the air valve; and a control switch for operating the actuator in cooperation with the refrigerator door when the refrigerator door is opened.